Judge — June 23, 1928 — page 10: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

JUDGE What It Means to Be a Professional Beauty By S. J. Perelman One day she w “Connie” Perelm ile beauty in her second y “High School” — in Mass. The next she was Con- stance (“Peaches”) Perelman, the idol of America, acclaimed by beauty judges the most pulchritu- dinous girl in the whole U. S. A. How do you account for thi Let us go back to Constance's girlhood, when she was sixteen years of age. Or rather, let us go back to her fifteenth year. Now that we have gone back to fifteen, we may as well “go the whole hog” (that is, if we may call Constance a hog, for she more closely resembles a wom- bat). When Connie was twelve she was always retiring. No sooner would you look around for her than sure enough, she had gone off to bed. It was always bed with her, no half measures. No porch swings or couch ham- mocks for her, just good old- fashioned bed. I believe it was La Rochefoucauld who said, “More than two-thirds of our just little ar in Mencken, life is spent in bed.” Let us add that with Constance it was al- ways her own bed, and it was probably spending so much time in bed that laid the foundation for her later success. In good name for this essay would he “From the Bed to the Stage, or ¢ Perelman’s Good Luck tting back to Constance as achild. The growing girl was always shy. Every morning on entering St. Irving Parochial, Connie would take out her lighter and place four pecks of sweet potatoes or jams over it. Finally one of her ‘mentor: remon- strated with her. “Why do you hide your light under a bush she inquired. “You must be in a hel! of a yam.” pondered her Constance rher’s words and then, taking the flint out of her lighter, she replaced it with thirty-two quartz. ... A handy boy can make lots of useful things with a pun-knife. By this time the dainty Connie had moved to New York and was living in an apartment hotel pro- vided by terious benefactor whose na she did not know. Various friends took a fatherly interest in her and opened charge accounts for her at Carticr’s and Hickson’s, much to her girlish surprise. Then, one morning, oke to find that she had rlected Miss Gre: taken to Atlantic week-end for the beauty contest, and there, after three days of balloting, three other girls and myself were the only remaining contestants. An- ay of balloting and only ke Shore Drive of p and I remained.” Were you nervous?” we asked, buttering a scone. “ZT should hope to spit in your left eve I was nervous,” laughed Constance ly. “T couldn’t sleep that night, mostly because there was no bed in my room (Miss Perelman was staying in a hotel composed entirely of bath- rooms), so I stayed up all night and drank beer. In the morn- ing the papers announced that one of the two contestants had caught a cold during the and died; so I knew right away it was not I. The next day I was acclaimed Miss America.” (Continued on page 31) City for the sy Painful embarrassment of the week-end guest who inadvertently spoke when a bird teas singing. comicbooks.com